$ 14.95

Book Details

American Cream

The absurd mixes with the real in a vision of the American landscape as both murderous and comic. This is a funny, angry and passionate history of our county.

“Imagine history as a series of trap doors and fun-house mirrors, where Nancy Drew and the Bobbsey Twins meet the Chicago 7 and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, where Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas are in the courtroom with Scrooge McDuck.  This is the brilliantly bizarre world of Mel Freilicher’s American Cream, a fictional realm of historical discourses punctuated by naughty erotic encounters. What would Little House on the Prairie look like if it were written by ‘Big Bill’ Haywood? Do sex and death go together like crime and meth? Are all mainstream political agendas delusional and deadly?. . .”  Stephen-Paul Martin, author of The Ace of Lightning and Changing the Subject

American Cream marks the third book in acclaimed San Diego author Mel Freilicher’s trilogy of avant garde experimental historical fiction (his other two books, The Unmaking of Americans: 7 Lives; and The Encyclopedia of Rebels are also on City Works Press). This book will appeal to readers who gravitate towards literature.

“Freilicher’s world is invented out of language, history and political clichés running over each other like a car without brakes.  When the car runs out of gas, there are long passages of the awful racist and labor history of our country. The absurd mixes with the real in a vision of the American landscape as both murderous and comic as the ‘American Dream’ is slathered over with ‘American Cream,’ which as usual never cancels out a real wrinkle.  This is a funny, angry and passionate history of our country. . .” –Eleanor Antin

 

About the Author

Mel Freilicher

Mel Freilicher is a longtime San Diego resident who was publisher and co-editor of Crawl Out Your Window for 15 years, a magazine of regional literature and arts. Freilicher’s previous book, The Unmaking of Americans : 7 Lives (2007) was published by San Diego City Works Press, and he was anthologized in their Sunshine/Noir: Writing from San Diego and Tijuana (2005). Freilicher was also anthologized in Contemporary American Fiction (Sun and Moon Press) and in Performance Anthology: Source Book for a Decade of California Performance Art (Contemporary Arts Press).  Along with two chapbooks, his reviews, essays, and fiction have appeared in many publications.  Freilicher has been teaching creative writing in the University of California at San Diego’s Literature Department for several decades.